the GNU/Linux distribution for lesbians™

the computer itself is on my rack, which is on the other side of the wall. i ended up drilling a hole through the wall and running 20m long USB and DisplayPort cables through it, then there’s a DisplayPort MST hub which splits it up to drive the three separate monitors and a whole bunch of USB hubs for all the peripherals. adds a bit of complexity, but it’s worth it because the fans are so damn loud, and it’s also more fun :3

the huge tree of USB hubs

John S. Rack

he is under construction and also a very good boy :3

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    • DaPorkchop_ [they/she/it]@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      12 days ago

      my main pool (in the R520) is 8x16TB drives in btrfs RAID1, and then i have a few smaller btrfs arrays for backups and simply offloading large datasets i’m not actively using from the main server (i don’t have enough SAS bays to have them all connected at once so i plug them into the lower T620 as necessary - drive shelves are all either too long for my rack or too damn expensive). that’s what all the drives piled up on top are, although to be fair they’re normally put away more nicely (have spent the last week or so clearing a whole bunch of old hardware out of my closet and had to get the drives out of the way).

      i can advise stalking r/homelabsales for a few months, you can occasionally find some fantastic deals there for refurbed drives, often with practically no use :)

        • DaPorkchop_ [they/she/it]@lemmy.mlOP
          2·
          12 days ago

          btrfs is pretty fun :) definitely a steep learning curve and there are a lot more little performance quirks than something like ZFS, but if you use it right it’s fantastic!

          the rack (and most of the stuff on it) is basically refurbished ewaste - i do a LOT of dumpster diving. pretty much the only things i’ve paid for are hard drives and RAM (which is all DDR3 and remains dirt-cheap, i’ve got both T620s up to 768GB now >:D). can recommend looking around at any schools/universities/large company offices near you to see if you can get your hands on some free shit

          yeah the shipping thing can be a pain (this is another reason i still don’t have a drive shelf), but there are still a few good deals which work out. i’m in switzerland (also not EU), so it isn’t any easier for me :P